Directions

Pour the warm water into a container that is twice the volume of the water. Pour in the salt, sugar, soy sauce, and olive oil. Stir until the sugar and salt have dissolved, then allow the brine to cool to room temperature.

To use, place chicken in the brine, cover, and refrigerate two hours for skinless breasts, 4 hours for bone-in pieces, and 4 hours to overnight for whole chickens. Drain and pat the chicken dry before cooking. One gallon of brine is enough for 6 pounds of whole chicken or bone-in chicken pieces, and up to 10 pounds of skinless, boneless chicken breasts.

Footnotes

Most Helpful Positive Review

Oct 28, 2008

Really good and really easy! The chicken was sooooo tender. However, if you plan to cook your chicken in a slow cooker, you're going to need to shorten your cooking time if you brine. Otherwise, the chicken will just fall apart. I was worried that the soy sauce would overpower it but not at all. Everyone loved it and said it was their favorite so far. I cook a chicken about once a week and am always trying different recipes. This is definitely a keeper!

Most Helpful Critical Review

Nov 03, 2011

I always do my brine differently and decided to review this one and it was no where near as good as the one I already use. I always add whole peppercorns, herbs, salt, garlic, sugar, etc and no oil to a stock pot filled with water and then I bring it to a boil, let it cool in an ice bath until very cold, then add the chicken to it and leave in fridge for 24 hours, I flip the chicken after 12 hours. I always rinse my chicken before roasting, but I also add a pinch of salt, pepper, and lemon juice or chicken broth poured over the chicken in pan. I always preheat oven to 400 degrees and lower temp to 350 after putting in the chicken, and add 10-15min cooking time to make sure skin is crispy because using a brine softens the skin.

The basis for this is good, but in my opinion whole chickens should be brined for 1-2 hours in cold water. Longer than that and you'll take up too much salt. Also when cooking, consider stuffing the body cavity with onions, apples, and other high moisture things and the chicken will come out super moist.

If using table salt or canning salt use half of what is called for if kosher is listed in recipe. I have unintentionally brined a whole chicken for over 24 hrs (when dinner plans changed) and it was not over salted or mushy. I also do not rinse my birds after brining and have not noticed any effects. To make sure the salt and sugar disolve I fill a half gallon container about half full with the warmest water I can get out of the tap. Add salt and sugar, stir until disolved. Add ice to container, stir to cool water down. Strain ice if desired and fill container to bring to 1gal then add soy and other ingredients.

This is a great foundation kind of recipe. You can add your own touch. I agree with Nox,COLD is the way to go. I used brown sugar,garlic and onion powder. A few shakes of crushed red pepper, added a little kick.I will never roast another chicken, turkey etc. without brining it first.

I have always wanted to try a recipe for "chicken brine" and this one looked easy and I had all the ingredients (or so I thought). I placed the one gallon of warm water in a big pot and added "regular" table salt (but only half of the 3/4 cup--I only did this because of what the other reviewers stated about using regular table salt). I thought I had kosher salt and since I did not, I had to substitute at the last second. I added the sugar, soy sauce and olive oil and proceeded with the rest of the recipe. I allowed the whole chicken to sit in the brine for 4 hours and then I drained it, rinsed off the chicken and just placed it in a pot with a lid in the refrigerator overnight until dinner time the next evening. The chicken stayed nice and moist even in the pot overnight. I roasted the chicken in my rotisserie the next evening and just for an experiment I did not add anything else to the skin of the bird. When the chicken was finished cooking, I took it out of the rotisserie and let it "sit" for 5 minutes....when I went to take off the twine that was holding the bird together in the rotisserie, the wings fell completely off and the the drumstick bones fell out with "no meat" attached...it was so completely moist and tender!! My husband and kids were so impressed and I was so excited to say it was a brine recipe from "allrecipes". You have to try this recipe! I will never cook a chicken again without first "brining" it!